(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new comeback album by the Dutch symphonic death/doom band Phlebotomized (who were the subject of an interview at our site last August), which is set for release on January 7th by Hammerheart Records.)

There is a good argument to be made that Phlebotomized are singlehandedly responsible for the genre we know as symphonic death metal. It’s hard to imagine that bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septicflesh (especially Septicflesh, the stylistic parallels are there), and the like would have turned out the way they did without Immense Intense Suspense, in my mind one of the greatest albums that has ever been created in the history of metal. I enjoyed the band’s sophomore album prior to their original split-up, Skycontact, with its odd left turn to a sort of psychedelic funeral doom style, but Immense Intense Suspense is what the band is most known for, for good reason.

Deformation Of Humanity is a comeback album, arriving more than 20 years after Skycontact, that’s very distinctly in the tradition of what Immense Intense Suspense established — death metal punctuated with synths and strings that runs the gamut from melodic death metal to traditional death metal, grindcore, and funeral doom, all mixed together into a cauldron of all-consuming void magik in sonic form.Continue reading »

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Tom Palms, founding guitarist of the Dutch death/doom band Phlebotomized, whose last album was released in 1997 , who have revived after an extended absence, and whose first new album in 21 years is now on the horizon.)

As you probably know, the Netherlands’ avant-garde death-doom and whatsoever metal legends Phlebotomized didn’t stop working after their sudden resurrection in 2013. The band actively forged their sound in the early ’90s, moving from pretty brutal death metal toward a new direction through experiments which took place on their full-length album Immense Intense Suspense and the absolutely different sophomore record, Skycontact.

It’s now 2018, and Phlebotomized are on Hammerheart Records and at work on their third album (the first one in 21 years!) under the title Deformation Of Humanity, which should come to light soon.

The only remaining original Phlebotomized member, Tom Palms, helped me to learn more about the band’s history and reveals a few things about the new stuff.Continue reading »